Almost start of the ski season

This was our last chance at a practise of our weekend schedule before Lara's ski lessons start again next Saturday morning. It takes some planning to get everyone in the right place at the right time with the right equipment.
At least Lara is helping now by carrying some of our gear (and it is only some!) in her boot bag. It's a lot lighter than it looks. Dan had a dozen or more runs down the nursery slope over the weekend, and so long as we don't pressure him too much, he's enjoying it. He likes going fast more than he likes stopping, though.

A bit of a snowy weekend and Remembrance Day

The weekend was nice, Lara is nearly fully fit now, the physio hasn't quite released her to full action, but she's out of her protective "boot" completely now, and wears just a normal, soft, ankle support for taekwondo and school. On Saturday morning she returned to dryland ski training, where a bunch of the kids do exercises for 90 minutes in a sports hall, all related to improving their physical condition for skiing. After that we bought her a new helmet for skiing, one that's hard plastic all over, as opposed to a normal ski helmet, which has soft bits over the ears to make it more comfortable, I presume. This "full-shell" helmet is a requirement for the 4 races she will enter this winter, and we'll not put kids' stickers all over this one! It's red, rather than pink, so it can be handed down to Dan as well, given it was rather expensive!
After that we went out to the trailer, and a little hike up a valley by a babbling stream. There was some snow on the ground so the kids practised snow-ball throwing, Dan is definitely a lefty. A dog walker we passed told us she'd just seen an elk on the other side of the river, but we missed it.
There was enough to build their first snowman, but they had as much fun knocking him down a couple of hours later - Lara practising her taekwondo on it!

Whilst walking the dogs on Saturday night, I was struck by their shadows as I walked them in torchlight and couldn't resist trying to take a photo:

On Sunday we picked up our ski lift passes from Nakiska, and had a look around, so the kids could see how it looks when there isn't much snow around. Those slopes look different when you can see the grass, I would think twice about walking up or down some of them, but I have no problem skiing down them.
Then I took the kids and dogs down to the river for a bit of adventuring while Olga cleaned up the trailer - Nakiska is due to open on Wednesday, and then on weekends for the rest of November, so if there is any good snowfall in the next few weeks, we might well be skiing at the weekends, so it's important to get the housekeeping tasks done now while there's time!

Yesterday was a full-on sports day once the kids were home from school/nursery: Dan had skating then gymnastics, and at the same time Lara had a swimming lesson then her taekwondo. It's just as well the main sports centre where three of those activities happen is only a nice, 15 minute walk away around the lake.
After her lesson Lara took great pleasure in demonstrating some self-defense techniques on me, she really does know where to pinch my arm to tweak the nerve!
Today Lara's school had their Remembrance Day service, as 11th November is a public holiday here. Lara was singing as part of their Senior Choir, and it was an outdoor service, which in temperatures around 0 degrees, was quite a brave thing for them to do.

Today is a relatively quiet one, with only Lara's skating to deal with after school..

The Snow is Here.. sort of

The first flakes of snow of the season fell in Airdrie today, but nothing hung around, but it's worth marking the date.
The situation out at Nakiska, where we ski, is better, Here is a photo taken from their webcam at the top end of their highest ski lift:

It's not that deep at the bottom of the runs, but it all bodes well as the people who run Nakiska want to open to the public this coming weekend.

The main access road to Nakiska, and to our trailer, was covered in snow today too. Let's hope it lasts the week, though the forecast is for above zero daytime temperatures with below zero at night.

Busy November

Here's how the calendar looks for November, a little hectic between the kids' skating, Dan's gymnastics, Lara's taewondo & music lessons, then Dan's skiing lessons start, and Lara should get back to her ski club's dryland training on Saturdays as her ankle heals. Oh, and she starts another round of swimming lessons next Monday..

Happy Halloween

Halloween is a big deal over here, with the grown ups almost as excited about it as the kids. As far as Lara was concerned, during the buildup last week, "Halloween is going to be the best night of my life". As is it, she ended up having a mini strop during the trick or treat walk as Dan wanted to go home before she was ready. In the end I stayed out with her for an extra 10 minutes before she too was ready to go home and start eating.  Even today she's been sulking that Dan "always ruins my Halloween because he's a baby". I'm not sure what he'd done to upset her this time, but I'm sure it didn't ruin her Halloween. She can be quite the drama queen.
Anyway, here are the kids as Astronaut Dan and Abbey Bominable (from Monster High, of course), and the grown ups didn't escape a little bit of dressing up too.